Rohde & Schwarz enhances and extends world’s first completely liquid-cooled transmitter for FM and HD RadioTM applications

Rohde & Schwarz’s fully redundant liquid-cooling technology generates lower electrical costs for cooling and ventilation, features a smaller footprint and offers increased reliability. The R&S THR9 transmitter is designed for permanent reliable operation at 45°C/113°F at full output power. At 40kW output power only 1kW of heat is dissipated into the environment, so air conditioning requirements are minimal. The unit’s footprint is comparable with competitive systems that offer 20 kW less output.

Importantly, the R&S THR9 runs on architecture that is independent of Microsoft Windows for all HD Radio entities including its Importer, Exporter and Exgine. As a consequence, users of this fully professional solution are not dependent on the availability of security patches for MS Windows for reliable efficient operation.

Compared with competitive manufacturers, Rohde & Schwarz’s HD Radio transmitter is significantly more robust and provides a richer feature set. For HD Radio applications, the R&S THR9 features a new HD Sync functionality, which provides automatic alignment of the HD Radio Diversity Delay between the analog and digital signals of a radio station. Developed by Rohde & Schwarz, HD Sync eliminates unwanted blending artifacts that can degrade the listening experience and prevent recurring and extensive time alignment procedures for station engineers.

HD Sync for Exporter ensures full compliance to the HD Radio time alignment specifications, which means the analog and digital signal time alignment is always in the permitted range of -3 to +3 samples and is fully automatic. This minimizes stress for engineers, reduces costs for station owners and enhances listener experience, especially when receiving radio in an area of weak digital but still strong analog coverage.

For optimum operation, the R&S THR9 works in unison with the R&S RelayCaster solution, which enables the use of public internet connections for the STL (Studio Transmitter Link) of HD Radio transmitters. As a result, dedicated and expensive IP links for the feeding I2E or E2X streams are not necessary, helping radio stations to reduce infrastructure costs while not compromising reliability nor transmission quality.

“The R&S THR9 is an awesome piece of technology and is uniquely positioned in the global radio transmitter market,“ commented Manfred Reitmeier, Vice President Transmitter and Amplifier Systems at Rohde & Schwarz. “The pure liquid-cooled design liberates radio broadcasters: by transporting 90% of the generated heat out of the building through the cooling liquid, the complexity of a reliable station cooling system is massively reduced. Now for the first time, the air time of the radio transmitters does not depend on the efficiency and reliability of the station’s HEVC system.”